Q to start off is, you know, Eli, you wrote an op-ed for me a few years ago where we talked about airspace as the next platform for innovation, and I thought that was a really eye-opening concept for me, and I think we need to just break down what each of those terms mean. Like, what is airspace? Why a platform? And why is it the next platform for innovation?
A Well, yeah, when I wrote that op-ed, I think it must have been in, must have been about three years ago when I was first starting to get interested in drones. The thing that I, I noticed that Immediately was that drones are completely legal to use for hobbyist purposes and completely illegal to use for commercial purposes. And it reminded me, uh, of the internet back in the 19 eighties, right? The, in the internet in the 19 eighties, it was this, uh, research program that the government had. Um, but there were guidelines that you, you know, MIT had an AI lab and the guidelines for students were like, you may not use this for any commercial purpose. You know, we could get in trouble with the government. It's just illegal. And, and, and I thought about the people running this program. They didn't mean to like hold back the internet. They, they were very, I'm sure very well intentioned. They wanted this to succeed and they weren't thinking about how much holding something back from commercial operation, uh, was likely to, to affect the success, right? If they, if they knew where we were today, they would have allowed Commercial use from the inception. Right. And so, so to me, I was, I was just thinking about what would people do with airspace if, if they could use it for commercial purposes, if it wasn't, you know, we've had, we've had remote controlled airplanes for decades, peop…
AI assessment note: “reminded me, uh, of the internet back in the 19 eighties”